TRIBAL DEVELOPMENT

The integrated and holistic development of the tribal communities is the one of the priority areas of IISD’s activities. The organization has been conducting non-formal education programmes for the out-of-school and school drop-out children belonging to the tribal communities to mainstream them into the formal school system. The programmes recognise the fact that the educational infrastructure and facilities, including provision of teaching-learning materials in local dialects and reflecting the physical-social environment of the tribal areas as well as the female teachers are almost absent in the remotest and backward areas of our country inhabited by the tribal people.

Vocational trainings, particularly in the traditional sectors like agriculture, horticulture, organic farming, bee-keeping etc., are also imparted to the people from tribal communities, with focus on women’s participation in these skill and knowledge building programmes. The emphasis has been to appropriately upgrade the local and traditional knowledge base of the tribal people to attend greater productivity and better management. The process has also involved integrating and mainstreaming the traditional knowledge with modern know-how.

IISD has been organising workshops for tribal youth in to develop aptitudes and skills to enable them to function as productive citizens. The programmes have contributed towards generation of awareness, knowledge and understanding among the tribal youth about the developmental activities of the government; social mobilisation of the tribal youth as the most important segment - catalyst - in the process of social development and change; reinforcement of the confidence of the tribal youth in their participatory leadership role in utilising the developmental schemes to the full advantage of the tribal community in accepting their entitlements and their social obligations as complementary set of activities; and empowerment of the tribal youth and for that matter, the tribal community by bringing them into the national mainstream.